Ciaran to join his own son

to reach his hand up out of the water and pull himself back up on the board. If we were delayed by even five minutes then he was gone as he was in serious difficulty.”

He also recalls another ‘bizarre’ rescue involving a swimmer who was being swept out to sea by strong currents. The mayday call received by Wicklow RNLI happened to coincide with the return of the JW Archer, which served in Wicklow from 1956 to 1987, and was involved in saving the lives of 75 people. The JW Archer’s Welsh owner was planning to sail the boat back to Wicklow for a visit.

Ciaran recalled: “We decided to sail out and meet him in the lifeboat. We were heading in his direction and could actually see the JW Archer in the distance, when we got a mayday call to say a person had been spotted in the water at Wicklow Head.

“Our first thought was it’s probably a seal, but we had been tasked so we turned around and high-tailed it back. We were around halfway down when out of nowhere we spotted a head in the water in a very distressed state, and managed to get him into the lifeboat.

“It turned out he had been at visiting Silver Stand with his wife and went for a swim. It was a beautiful day with really calm weather, but there are mad tides at Long Rock, which swept him out to sea, dragging him out towards the Isle of Man.

“It was a completely random event and that swimmer was steeped in luck. Us heading out to meet the JW Archer was a completely random act. If we hadn’t been out at that particular time and hadn’t taken that particular route, who knows what might have happened? Usually in an incident like that we would start searching close to the coast, but our path somehow just brought us right to the casualty.

“I still don’t understand how it all happened, but he was already three miles way from the coast when we came upon him and was heading to oblivion.”

That particular incident was also the first time Ciaran and his son Matt were part of the same callout crew, with Matt following in his father’s footsteps by joining Wicklow RNLI around eight years ago.

“He has been hanging out at the lifeboat station since he was a child and was on his first trip on the lifeboat aged four. He was basically brainwashed by me into doing it,” Ciaran jokes. “Matt has been involved with the sailing club and scuba diving and has the sea in his bones.”

Unfortunately, another aspect of the job is dealing with recovering bodes form the sea, which can often prove very traumatic, especially if the casualty is know to crew members.

Ciaran said: “The RNLI has a support service to help people with difficult situations called TRiM, which designed to assist any RNLI person who has been involved in or exposed to a potentially traumatic incident as part of their RNLI role.

“Unfortunately, we would be involved in the rescue of a body at least once a year, and it’s certainly the most difficult aspect of the role. It gets particularly difficult when crew members know the people or person we are dealing with.

“We have had tragic events involving family members of the crew, which is very tough. It’s rare thankfully. It’s just one of the things that comes with the job, like all emergency services.”

As a voluntary organisation, Wicklow RNLI are reliant on donations from individuals and groups, receiving great support from the local community.

“Our fundraising branch do wonderful work and people are very good to us. We had a stall at the Wicklow Christmas Market and we also have our RNLI shop. Wicklow Golf Club give us free use for our charity fundraiser, which usually raises between €4,000 to €5,000. Only yesterday a local creche donated €400 to us.

“Local caravan parks carry out different fundraisers on our behalf. You could quite often just be sitting in the lifeboat station when you will hear a knock and door and find someone is there wanting to hand over a cheque. We are very much part of the community and people are always looking out for different ways to support us.”

Down the years Wicklow Lifeboat Station has also welcomed famous faces, including most recently Irish actor Brendan Gleeson and fellow star Don Cheadle, who were filming the movie ‘The Guard’ at Wicklow Harbour back in 2009.

“They both came into the station and met the crew. That was real fun and the pair of them were great craic. The Duke of Kent, who is the patron of the RNLI, visited us in 1993. The 1963 movie ‘The Running Man’ was also filmed here and the lifeboat appeared in that movie.

“President Patrick Hillery used to be a frequent visitor. He used to sail from Dun Laoghaire to Wicklow and you knew he was coming because you would see the garda car assigned to him waiting there on the pier. It was all very informal.”

As for the future, Ciaran can see his retirement on the sunset, though he is in no rush to call it quits just yet.

“It’s a win-win for me in that I enjoy the boats and watching the technology develop. I know my time is coming to an end but we have another batch of great recruits coming behind me. You do form really tight bonds with your fellow crew volunteers as you are reliant on one another to watch your backs.”